


Until We Bathe In The Sunlight

by killingmonsterswritingthings



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Beach Episode, Established Relationship, F/F, IPRE Days, Painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 20:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10838886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killingmonsterswritingthings/pseuds/killingmonsterswritingthings
Summary: Lucretia had had enough time to observe her friends by now to be able to paint them all from memory. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a perfectionist, and it also didn’t mean she wouldn’t exploit that perfectionist reputation for her own goals. She was going to paint Lup.





	Until We Bathe In The Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> once again bringing you that good good lupcretia content
> 
> listen, i know griffin likes to fuck us up with those zags and i got very emotional about the painting, so this was necessary after that latest episode

 

Lucretia had had enough time to observe her colleagues, her friends – her _family_? – by now to be able to paint them all from memory. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t a perfectionist, and it also didn’t mean she wouldn’t exploit that perfectionist reputation for her own goals.

She was painting the sun descending into the sea one evening, wondering how she should bring her project up to Lup, when the very same came up to her.

“You keep getting better.”

Lucretia lowered her brush and turned to Lup, and all she could see was leg. Lup was digging her heels into the sand, and Lucretia’s eyes traveled up, up, up over Lup’s golden brown skin until she reached her shorts.

“Heyyyy,” Lup drawled and Lucretia flinched, “my eyes are up here.”

“I apologize,” Lucretia said, quickly looking to her painting again.

Lup’s laughter sounded in her ears and she was suddenly way too close. “It’s all good, I’m just messing with you. I want you to look at me.”

Goosebumps trailed up Lucretia’s arm and her shock stopped her hand half in the motion to picking up her brush again. She would probably never get used to Lup saying things like these. She knew that they were coming, each and every time, because it was _Lup_ and Lucretia had spent years studying her, getting to know her, and her advances weren’t unwanted – she had always wanted Lup, from the beginning – but she would probably never get over her initial reservation. She would always be surprised that a person could be so _much_ , and yet so lovable.

Lucretia took a couple seconds to compose herself, then she cleared her throat. “Actually, I have a favor to ask.” She looked at Lup again, both deeming it safe and thinking it important. She needed to do this now, or she might never do it, even if they spent another hundred years on their mission.

“Hit me.” Lup grinned.

“Let me paint you,” Lucretia said, and she was almost surprised by her own boldness, barely tacking on a “please” as an afterthought.

Lup’s smile only became brighter, even impossibly so.

“With pleasure,” she said. “Where do you want me?”

Lucretia sighed. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“You can’t prove a thing,” Lup grinned.

Lucretia had to smile despite herself. This was why she loved Lup.

“Give me half an hour to prepare,” she said. “I’ll set up here on the beach.”

“Cool, then I can finish helping Taako repair his surfboard. Not sure how he managed to fuck it up again, but I guess I have to help him out again because I’m the older twin.”

Lucretia didn’t see what that had to do with it, but she nodded anyway. “Just come back when you’re done,” she said. Her mind was already occupied with planning the best background setting, the size of the canvas, the colours she would pick and mix. The poses she would ask Lup to get into.

“Will do,” Lup said and tore off down across the stretch of beach towards where Taako was fiddling with his invention in the distance.

Lucretia thought about how badly they had needed this while she set up. Failing to save worlds again and again had eaten away at them, until they barely recognized themselves – at least that’s what it had been for her, and she knew it was the same for Lup, even though she tried to mask it, and Magnus and Barry, who had been a bit more vocal about it. And even when they managed to save the world, the guilt and exhaustion still followed Lucretia.

It had followed her here, too. For the first month of their little vacation she had wondered if this was the right thing to do. If they were even allowed to take a break, if they weren’t wasting time, if they shouldn’t try to find out more about the light, about the hunger, about whatever it was that was tearing this universe apart over and over again.

Until she had realized that they would never get to that point if they didn’t slow down for once, if they didn’t take a break and took care of themselves. They were being consumed by the hunger – in a different way than all the destroyed planes they had witnessed, but still devastatingly enough to be noticeable. So she had given in to the temptation of relaxation, because she needed it, and because it was needed for them to continue their mission.

She still did what she could to advance their research, because she had lost the ability to completely calm her mind a long time ago. She kept coming back to the light, but her research kept stalling out, and most nights she just found herself staring at it, wondering what she was missing.

  


  


She had just finished setting up her easel at a slightly different spot when Lup came back.

She was still wearing the same shorts, but Lucretia noticed that she had changed from her dirty sleeveless shirt into a crop top.

“You, um… you look great,” Lucretia said.

Lup beamed. “I knew you’d like it. Dressing up for you always pays off.” She twirled a little. “Where do you want me?”

“Just...” Lucretia motioned at a blanket she had put down on the sand. “Sit down there.”

Instead of sitting down like a normal person, Lup threw herself down on the blanket, propping her head up on one hand, and smirked

“Draw me like one of your french girls.”

Lucretia’s face grew hot and she fumbled with her canvas. “I don’t know how you keep coming up with these things.”

“Oh, no, it’s a quote from this...” Lup squinted like she was trying to remembered something. Lucretia was sure it was just an act. She had never heard that sentence before in her life. “Whatever.”

“You know what,” Lucretia said, already mixing the paint, “I think you can stay like that.”

Lup’s expression changed back to her usual grin. “Excellent. I look best like this.”

And Lucretia couldn’t even argue with that, because Lup looked best whenever she was happy, and she was happiest when she could be carefree and do whatever she wanted. She wanted to paint her like that. The way she squinted her eyes when she laughed. The way she made the most ridiculous things look normal. The way she could look at Lucretia and make her feel like there didn’t have to be any secrets between them.

Lucretia started painting.

She began with the waves behind Lup, the way they blended into the sky at the horizon. Then came the blanket she was lying on. Then her legs, even darker now than they had been when the seven of them had first come to this plane. Then her stomach, one of Lucretia’s favorite things about Lup’s body.

But the thing she was most looking forward to capture – and most hesitant to start on – was her face. The freckles dusting her brown skin, her black hair falling over her shoulders, her dark, intelligent eyes. Lucretia loved every bit of her.

For a while she was able to work in silence, losing herself in the brushstrokes and her ability to look at Lup without shame, but it didn’t take long for Lup to grow bored.

“You know, I wish I could paint.”

Lucretia looked away from where she was painting Lup’s hands to meet her eyes.

“It’s not about talent,” she said patiently, “it’s about hard work and training. I’ve had a lot of time to hone my skills.”

“You speak eight languages – more by now, with all the places we’ve been too – and you can write with both hands at the same time. I think there has to be some innate talent there.”

“I can’t do magic the same way you can,” Lucretia countered. She changed brushes to touch up some of the trees at the edge of the canvas. “There’s innate abilities, and then there’s being able to learn something. I _learned_ all of what I do now.”

“And I learned how to wield my magic,” Lup shrugged. She smiled. “You have magic, too. I can feel it. Maybe we could teach each other.”

Lucretia looked down at her hands for a moment and wondered what she would be able to do if she could cast the magic she knew was flowing within her. “I would like that.”

“Anyway,” Lup said and for a moment Lucretia’s heart dropped, thinking that she would change the topic, but then– “I wish I could paint, because I want to capture this moment, and how beautiful you look in this light.”

Lucretia almost lost control over her hand and just barely avoided painting a stripe of bright green over the entire width of the canvas.

“I… uh… thank you.” She cleared her throat and ducked her head.

“Hey, hey… look at me,” Lup said. Lucretia obeyed. Lup’s gaze was intense, but she was still smiling. “Do you like what you see?”

Lucretia nodded, unable to say anything.

“See, so you want to paint me. Because you think I’m beautiful, right? That’s the same way I feel about you. You look so beautiful here, surrounded by all this green and blue.” She motioned to the tree Lucretia had discarded her jacket on. “Those colours suit you even better than the Institute red. That makes you look fierce and strong, and I love it, especially because you don’t feel like that a lot of the time, but blue… Blue is so much better.”

Lucretia’s breath was taken away by how well Lup knew her, and how much adoration she could hear in her words. It was hard for her, sometimes, to see herself the way Lup seemed to see her, but her words always felt like an embrace – a strong one, but wanted nonetheless.

“I’m sure there’s… some kind of magical way to take pictures?”

“I might be tinkering with something,” Lup said and winked.

Lucretia had to laugh. Of course she was.

  


She managed to work undisturbed for another twenty minutes, until Lup began whining.

“Luuuuceeeee, my arm hurts!”

“Shake it out, then,” Lucretia said. She had finally worked up to Lup’s face and was carefully painting her nose. Then she looked at Lup, and her mouth, which was smiling in the picture, was pulled into a frown. Lucretia’s expression softened. “We can take a break, if you want.”

“Oh hell yeah,” Lup said, “come here.”

“I didn’t mean...” Lucretia sighed and put her paintbrush down instead of arguing. She could use a break, too, and she didn’t have to leave Lup alone for that. So she deposited her brush in the cup filled with water so it wouldn’t dry up and end up ruined, made sure the canvas was still secure on the easel, and then walked over to Lup, who had sat up now.

She kneeled next to Lup and Lup’s hands immediately came up to hold Lucretia’s waist.

“Hey,” she said, and her smile was back.

“Hi,” Lucretia said, trying to settle into a more comfortable position.

“Good you’re here now because I really wanted to touch you, and I couldn’t, because you were all the way over there.”

“Sorry about that,” Lucretia said, amusement obvious in her voice. “I was busy painting your pretty face.”

“I hope you made me extra pretty.”

“Mhmm, I did.”

Lup stretched a little to kiss Lucretia, her hand slipping from Lucretia’s waist to find her hand. Then she pulled back and brought Lucretia’s hand up to her lips.

“You’re so graceful with these,” she said, peppering kisses over Lucretia’s knuckles. “I love watching you paint me.”

Lucretia flushed. “Careful, or you’re going to get paint in your mouth.”

“Oh, is that a challenge?” Lup giggled.

“It’s most certainly not, you rea-” Lucretia found herself being toppled over by Lup, who was now sitting on her. “Lup...”

“You said we could take a break,” Lup said, smirking.

Lucretia rested her hands on Lup’s thighs on impulse. “I didn’t mean this… But I’m not objecting.”

“Good,” Lup grinned and this time she had to bend down to kiss Lucretia. “Because I really, _really_ need to kiss you for at least fifteen minutes.”

It was a welcome distraction, Lucretia thought. She tended to spend too much time alone with her own thoughts, and her preferred activities – writing and painting – only supported that. She was an observer, not a leader. But spending time with Lup like this almost made her believe she could be.

When Lup started kissing her neck and breathing playfully on her ear, Lucretia hissed and tightened her grip on Lup’s legs.

“Can we… save that for later?” She really wanted to get that painting done.

“Aw, you’re just gonna leave me hanging?” Lup pouted but disentangled herself from Lucretia, sitting back down on the blanket.

“Later, I promise,” Lucretia said. “I just don’t want to lose the light you look best in.”

“Well, if you put it like that, I can’t really argue,” Lup said and ran a hand through her hair. “I do look best before sundown.”

Lucretia was regretting her decision slightly when she got up and adjusted her clothes, but her certainty grew when she walked back to her easel. She had to get this done.

She just hoped Lup would not start talking about all the things she wanted to do with her later while she worked, because despite all the practice she had gotten over the years, Lucretia could rarely resist her. Not Lup.

Lup looked even more beautiful now, her hair slightly disheveled, a little sand on her arm, but she proved cooperative and rather talked about Taako wiping out on his surfboard earlier and scraping up his arm.

“He’s complaining so much you’d think Magnus tried ripping it off,” she said and Lucretia had to chuckle.

It was endlessly fascinating to her how two people – twins – could be so similar and yet so different.

  


Finally, Lup got a little quiet, and the next time Lucretia looked up, her head was resting on her arm on the blanket and her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep.

Lucretia looked at her almost-finished painting that only needed a few little last adjustments, and made a decision to finish it later after all. Instead she hurried back to her small tent of supplies and returned with more paper and her charcoal. This was something she would have to get down quickly.

  


Later she would show it to Lup and ask her what to do with it, feeling almost guilty. And Lup would take the picture from her, and keep it with her from then on. Maybe forever.

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> hahaha what do you mean lucretia's dnd class is wizard shhhh i don't know anything about that (all i'm saying is i may have taken some artistic liberties and also classes can change and maybe this is how it happened)
> 
> the title is from [Hanging On A Honeymoon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZEBgZgNm2o) by William Beckett
> 
> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/luffylaws) and [tumblr](https://leiathelight.tumblr.com)


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